After two mass shootings on Chicago’s South Side this past week, a neighborhood church held a vigil for the victims while also pushing the community to stand up for peace.
“Because it could be you. It could be your block, it could be your family members,” Ald. William Hall, who represents the city's 6th Ward, told the congregation at Shiloh Seventh Day Adventist Church.
The church sits just blocks from the site of a mass shooting Monday that left two people dead and two others injured. Jon Rucker, 47, and Simon Brown, 59, both bystanders, were hit by stray gunfire.
The shooting, police said, began as an argument in the street near 71st and State streets in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood. Prosecutors allege Trivell Pruitt and another man exchanged gunfire, but bullets ended up hitting others standing nearby.
Brown was shot while standing near a fire hydrant and Rucker was shot while standing near an ATM, according to court records.
The entire shooting was captured on surveillance video.
At the church service on Friday evening, people prayed for their grieving families.
“To see everybody coming together, people I’ve never met before being there for me,” said Brown’s son, Simon Brown Jr. “I still can’t believe sometimes that he’s gone.”
Leaders told the crowd gathered inside the church that people need to feel safe walking outside.
“You can walk to the store in safety in this community, you can go and make a purchase on the corner in this community in safety,” said Pastor John Boston II.
Pruitt was arrested near the shooting scene and was later charged with first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder. Police were still searching for the second shooter as of late Friday.
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